Favoured Deregulation?

I take great pride in the fact that, unlike the present Member of Parliament for North West Durham, I am not a member of the same political party as Tony Blair. 

Blair's latest performance as Norma Desmond has rightly attracted little attention for its own sake. But there has been consternation in certain quarters that Momentum has made the almost banal statement that the Blair Government's failure to regulate the globally important British banking sector was a significant factor in causing the Great Crash of 2009.

This critique carries weight because it comes from the Labour Left, which opposed the Blair Government's economic policies at the time. It would have carried no weight if it had come from the Conservative Party, which entirely failed to do so.

But at least one of the protesters has been a Labour MP who had first been elected only in 2017. That indicates how baleful the situation inside the Parliamentary Labour Party is going to remain for very many more years yet.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. A new party will be registered before House of Commons rises for the summer recess, even if I have to pay for it myself, ongoing lawfare or no ongoing lawfare. 

And I will stand for Parliament here at North West Durham even if I can raise only the deposit, which I could do by going pretty overdrawn, although that was not how I was brought up. I would still prefer to raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign, but I am no longer making my candidacy conditional on having done so. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.